 Electric Lady Studios, front entrance, April 2013 | |
 Interactive map of Electric Lady Studios | |
| Address | 52 West Eighth Street,Greenwich Village, New York City 10011 |
|---|---|
| Location | New York City |
| Coordinates | 40°43′59″N73°59′56″W / 40.73306°N 73.99889°W /40.73306; -73.99889 |
| Type | Recording studio |
| Opened | August 26, 1970 (1970-08-26) |
| Website | |
| https://electricladystudios.com/ | |
Electric Lady Studios is arecording studio inGreenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musicianJimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architectJohn Storyk and audio engineerEddie Kramer. It was completed by 1970.[1] Hendrix spent only ten weeks recording in Electric Lady beforehis death that year, but it quickly became a famed studio used by many top-selling recording artists from the 1970s onwards, includingLed Zeppelin,Stevie Wonder, andDavid Bowie.
At the turn of the 21st century, Electric Lady served as a home for the innovativeSoulquarians collective, but fell into financial hardship and disarray in the 2000s. Taken over and renovated by investor Keith Stoltz and studio manager Lee Foster, the studio returned to form as a popular location for mainstream artists of the 2010s, such asJohn Mayer,U2,Taylor Swift,Lady Gaga andZach Bryan.
Before it became Electric Lady Studios, the building housedThe Village Barn nightclub from 1930 to 1967. Abstract expressionist artistHans Hofmann began lecturing there in 1938, two decades before he turned to painting full-time.[2]
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In 1968,Jimi Hendrix and his manager Michael Jeffery bought the Generation, a newly defunct nightclub in New York's Greenwich Village.[3] Hendrix had frequently joined jam sessions at the venue, which had hosted acts as diverse and legendary asBig Brother & the Holding Company,B.B. King,Chuck Berry,Dave Van Ronk,Sly & the Family Stone, andJohn Fahey. Hendrix had planned to resuscitate the nightclub, but was persuaded by advisorsEddie Kramer and Jim Marron to convert the space into a professional recording studio. Studio fees for the lengthyElectric Ladyland sessions had been astronomical, and Hendrix was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him.
Architect andacousticianJohn Storyk oversaw the conversion. Construction of the studio took nearly double the time and money planned. Permits were delayed numerous times, the site flooded due to heavy rains during demolition, andsump pumps had to be installed (then soundproofed) after the building was found to be atop a tributary of an underground river,Minetta Creek.[4]
The studio was constructed specifically for Hendrix, with round windows and a machine to generate ambient lighting in myriad colors. It was designed to have a relaxing feel to encourage Hendrix's creativity, but also provide a professional recording atmosphere. According to engineer Eddie Kramer, original control room equipment featured a Datamix console,[5] possibly 48-input, and anAmpex MM100016-/24-track recorder.[6] Hendrix spent only 10 weeks recording in Electric Lady, most of which during the final phases of construction were still occurring. His last studio recording, a new solo demo for "Belly Button Window", was recorded on August 22. The last mix session with Eddie Kramer took place on August 24 on "Freedom", "Night Bird Flying", "Dolly Dagger", and "Belly Button Window". An opening party was held on August 26, 1970. Hendrix then boarded anAir India flight for London to perform at theIsle of Wight Festival; hedied less than three weeks later.[2]
In the following three decades, many popular artists recorded albums at Electric Lady.[7] "From its inception, [Hendrix']s mother ship served as a rock, funk, disco and soul Olympus where gold and platinum hits were forged", Liesl Schillinger wrote inThe Wall Street Journal.
Stevie Wonder used the studio extensively in the 1970s, when it became what he described as "the self-contained universe" for his work, wanting to depart from the "baby love" sound of his 1960sMotown recordings and "get as weird as possible". Among his recordings there were the 1972 albumsMusic of My Mind andTalking Book.[1]
Others users includedLed Zeppelin,Lou Reed,Hall & Oates,the Rolling Stones, andBlondie. In 1971,Gene Simmons andPaul Stanley, then with the New York rock bandWicked Lester, recorded demos at the studio. They returned a few years later to recordKiss's 1975 albumDressed to Kill.[7]
In 1975,John Lennon andDavid Bowie held an improvisatory session at the studio that produced Bowie's hit single "Fame" for hisYoung Americans album. That same year,Patti Smith used the studio to record her debut album,Horses. In 1978,Nile Rodgers took his bandChic to Electric Lady and recorded the hit single "Le Freak". In 1981,The Waitresses recorded their holiday hit "Christmas Wrapping" there.[8]
"The enchantment held through the '80s and '90s, asAC/DC andthe Clash showed up, thenBilly Idol,the Cars,Weezer andSantana", Schillinger wrote. "The house that Jimi built welcomed them all."[7]
From 1997 to the early 2000s, theSoulquarians, an experimentalblack music collective, held jam sessions and recorded albums at the studio, often drawing on the influence of Hendrix and Wonder's recordings.[1] This period at the turn of the 21st century is known in the studio's history as the Soulquarians era.[7]
In 1997, the singerD'Angelo and drummer-producerQuestlove (ofthe Roots) prepared to record the former's second albumVoodoo (2000). This led to adjacent sessions at the studio over the next five years that produced the Roots' albumsThings Fall Apart (1999) andPhrenology (2002), singerErykah Badu's second albumMama's Gun (2000), rapperCommon'sLike Water for Chocolate (2000) andElectric Circus (2002), and singerBilal's debut album1st Born Second (2001).[1] Questlove often acted as the director behind the sessions. "I tried to do all in my power that I could to bring people together – to bring Common to Electric Lady, have him record here whenever so that he could record with some of these other artists," he said in 2002. "You'd just come into [the studio's] A Room, you don't even know who has a session, but you call me: 'Who's down there?' 'Common's in there today.' So you come down, you order some food, sit down and bullshit, watch a movie, and then it's, 'Let's play something.' And I say, 'Who wants this [track]?' And it would be, 'I want it!' 'No, I want it!'"[9]
Eventually, the Soulquarians' period at the studio ended, in part because labels declined to release the experimental music it was producing.[1] Bilal held improvisatory jam sessions at the studio for his second album,Love for Sale, which the label hesitated to release, and then shelved after itleaked.[10] Common's similarly experimentalElectric Circus sold disappointingly, which discouraged his and the Roots' shared label,MCA Records, from letting the artistically free environment at the studio continue.[1] ProducerMark Ronson, who often visited Electric Lady during the Soulquarians period, said in 2015 that the studio's "glory-days era had sort of ended". According to Schillinger "after the Soulquarians had departed, the place had gone further downhill."[7]
After years of financial hardship,[11] the studio was taken over by investor Keith Stoltz and studio manager Lee Foster in 2010. They renovated and expanded the studio, adding a new mixing studio on the second floor and turning the third into a self-contained unit including Studio C, a private lounge, and another mixing suite.[12]
The studio has since been used by popular recording artists, such asAdele,A$AP Rocky,Jay-Z,Keith Richards (for the 2011 expanded reissue of the Stones'Some Girls LP),Daft Punk (for their 2013 albumRandom Access Memories), andU2 (for their 2014 albumSongs of Innocence). John Mayer used the studio to record his 2012 albumBorn and Raised.Taylor Swift has frequently recorded at the studio, notably for the albumsLover (2019),Folklore (2020),Midnights (2022), and the re-recordings ofFearless (2021),Red (2021),Speak Now (2023) and1989 (2023).[13] Mixing engineerTom Elmhirst held a residency in Studio C, where in 2014 he mixed theBeck albumMorning Phase; he has commented on the pace of work by saying "this place is a beating heart". Schillinger wrote in 2015 that "one day last winter, seven sessions proceeded simultaneously, including:Interpol in Studio A;Jon Batiste (the bandleader forThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert) in Studio B's live room; andLana Del Rey,Rod Stewart and producer and singer-guitaristDan Auerbach ofthe Black Keys all working on the third floor."[7]
On December 7, 2020, the bandBleachers, who had recorded the song "Chinatown" at the studio, released a performance video filmed on the roof of the building withBruce Springsteen.[14] In late 2022, the Rolling Stones performed live in the studio before their future producerAndrew Watt in preparation for the production of their new studio albumHackney Diamonds.[15]
DATAMIX M968 Channel Strip first originated with the console installed at the famous Electric Lady Studios
Kramer's experience recording Hendrix at the Record Plant in Manhattan influenced the choice of custom Datamix consoles... the first fully operational 24-track console: I believe it was 48-in and 24-out and there were 24 buses, graphic equalizers on each channel... API faders. The first machine we had was a 16-track—an Ampex MM1000—but it was wired for 24, so when the first 24-headstack came in, we converted it to 24. We also had loads of 4-tracks and 2-tracks."
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